Campaign for the Arts

"This is about the individual learning, the social, the personal, the community enhancements that come when young people are allowed to discover themselves, discover the world around them, and to really develop those skills of empathy, understanding, tolerance, compassion, which come from imagining lives beyond our own." - Baroness Deborah Bull, advocate of universal arts education.

"The range of opportunities in the Highlands has always been limited unfortunately but due to the cuts, it's brought a lot of anxiety and worry about the future of the arts." - Patton, Campaign for the Arts supporter. Sign now to avert cultural catastrophe and defend arts access in Scotland ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/ezpCbWzy

As many have headed #BackToSchool this week, consider that that the number of arts teachers (inc. media, art & design, music, D&T, drama) in English state secondaries has decreased from 55,000 to 40,000. Arts education matters. It's time to address #TheStateoftheArts ! https://lnkd.in/eYYUGcuy University of Warwick

In the space of just two weeks, 15,000 campaigners have signed our emergency petition, urging the Scottish Government to keep their promises and deliver crucial support for the arts and culture. Yesterday, the Cabinet Secretary Angus Robertson acknowledged the support of culture campaigners as he announced the reinstatement of £6.6M for Creative Scotland, including £3M for the Open Fund for Individuals. Whilst we welcome the reinstatement of this funding, our demands for full reversal of cuts and urgent delivery of ALL promised funding remain unfulfilled! Scotland's cultural sector continues to be at risk. Add your name to the petition now! https://lnkd.in/ezpCbWzy

🚨BREAKING NEWS 🚨 The Scottish Government reinstates £6.6m in investment for Creative Scotland, including £3m for the Open Fund. Despite this, significant sums of funding pledged for 2024-5 remain cut or unconfirmed. Scotland's cultural sector is still critically at risk. The First Minister stated that “resources required to enable Creative Scotland to continue the work of the Open Fund are now available for them to distribute.” A review of Creative Scotland and £1.8M in funding for Youth Music were also announced. We welcome the reinstatement of funding which will enable the Open Fund and other initiatives to resume their operations. However, our three petition demands remain essentially unfulfilled. They are: 1) Urgently provide all the culture funding you promised this year, including to Creative Scotland. 2) Urgently clarify and increase the culture funding available for next year, including for Creative Scotland to provide the investment and certainty that organisations need to survive. 3) Urgently deliver on the Scottish Government’s pledges to “more than double” investment in culture and the arts, and to “agree 3 year funding settlements for Scottish Government core funded cultural organisations” including Creative Scotland. The bottom line: funding cuts by the Scottish Government represent a backtracking on their pledges to increase investment. The cultural sector in Scotland is still gravely at risk. Add your name now! Sign here: https://lnkd.in/ezpCbWzy

"How do you justify abandoning a sector which sustains over 80,000 jobs and contributes more than £5 billion to the economy?" - Alexander Stewart MSP Yesterday, the Scottish Government responded to calls that it had 'betrayed' the arts sector through its repeated broken promises and the closure of Creative Scotland's Open Fund for Individuals. Cabinet Secretary Angus Robertson MSP assured: "everything is being done in government at the present time to make sure that the funding is safeguarded and is provided as a priority." We need the government's promises to turn into actions now, to avert a cultural catastrophe. Neil Bibby MSP stated that "this is a total mess and Scotland's artists are paying the price for this government's incompetence and poor planning." Rachael Hamilton MSP called out the quadruple arts funding U-turn, imploring the Scottish Government to “be transparent and to be open with Scotland's culture and creative sector. Because at the moment it is a hokey cokey.” The sector cannot run on pledges alone! 15,000 of us have signed our names to call on the government to deliver on its promises now to prevent cultural catastrophe. Join the petition here: https://lnkd.in/ezpCbWzy This post contains information licensed under the Scottish Parliament Copyright Licence.

No art without artists! We're demanding the Scottish Government to deliver on its arts funding promises to prevent cultural catastrophe. Add your name to the petition now- help us reach 15,000 signatures! https://lnkd.in/ezpCbWzy Quote by Campaign for the Arts supporter Sarah.

It's disheartening to see further evidence from the BBC outlining the sheer scale of the crisis affecting council-run libraries. - Over 180 council-run libraries have either closed or been handed to volunteer groups since 2016. - More deprived communities were four times more likely to have lost a library in that time. - Of those remaining, around a third, 950 libraries, have had their hours reduced. We're with Michael Rosen on this one - reducing access to libraries is "an act of cruelty." https://lnkd.in/eZA7xS98

We've been alerted to a series of 'Stop The Arts' protests happening across the country. Any information about the members and objectives of this group would be much appreciated.

Have you been affected by Creative Scotland's sudden closure of the Open Fund for Individuals? We want to hear from you - comment below or click here to share your story now: https://lnkd.in/ey6Ku7zP